Communication systems for saving and retrieving telephone messages have become an integral, indispensable part of everyday life. The ability to have an automated system answer telephone calls and take a message have permeated society. Answering machines were the first units widely used for telephone message recording and retrieving. These systems provided either a cassette tape recording or a digital recording of the telephone message. With these systems, a recipient of a message could listen to the message as it was being recorded. During the course of the recording, the recipient could override the recording device and gain control of the call by lifting the receiver and answering the call. The recipient of the call could also simply turn off the machine and lift the receiver and answer the call, which would in turn disable the recording device and allow the user to regain control of the telephone call. No message would be recorded.
The next evolution was the automated voice mail system employed by many offices. This system does not require an answering machine for each person, office or even telephone number. Instead an internal telephonic network renders the use of separate answering machines unnecessary. When a telephone call is routed to the recording device, the sound of the message itself is not heard by the recipient, instead the internal system records the call without giving the user the ability to monitor the message being recorded. In addition, complete control over the call is transferred to the automated voice mail system. The user is completely removed from the decision making process regarding the call in that the user is unable to gain control of the incoming call.
Therefore, one of the major drawbacks that exists with presently available automated voice mail systems is the inability to monitor a call and allow the user to obtain control of the telephone call.
Another major drawback that exists with present systems is the limited access to and control of incoming calls while the called party is on the same line connected to some on-line service, such as the Internet. Presently, when a user is on-line, there is no means available for the user to monitor the incoming call.
Consequently, there exists a need wherein a called party has the capability of listening to a telephone call while the calling party is recording a message on a voice mail system and the called party also has the capability of controlling the telephone call. There is also a need to be able to listen to a message being recorded and control the telephone call while the called party is on the same line connected to the Internet or other on-line services.